Category Archives: blog

Worshiping God in the Middle of His Creation

Posted on July 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

This morning, for Sunday worship service, our congregation didn’t meet in the churchyard as happens each time we have church services.  Instead, we took a detour and went down to the creek.   The beauty of nature became a sanctuary like none I’ve ever been in.  Overhead, the trees, bursting with the leaves that come with mid-summer, made a canopy that swayed in the morning breeze.  The overcast sky threatened rain and the light, soft and yielding, cast a lovely glow on the people that had gathered to worship God and on the beauty of God’s creation surrounding them.  Behind the “pulpit” made up of a picnic table underneath one of the huge trees, the creek gurgled and laughed as it flowed over rocks and made it’s way, as all flowing water does, to the sea.

As I looked around at the people, I saw an array of dress and I couldn’t help thinking that there are places some of us, myself included,would not have been allowed.  Knowing what hangs around creeks and pastures, I wore my jeans and boots.  Nobody cared.  We were there to worship the Lord, not critique what each one was wearing.  While we sang songs from the old Church Hymnal, I walked around taking photos.  I could not pass up such a rare opportunity to get shots of God’s people worshiping Him in the midst of His creation while all that surrounded us sang along with us and, in my mind, took an active part just by being.  After the service, the food and fun began.  There were grilled burgers and dogs with all the fixin’s.  Not long after they got their bellies full, the kids found their way into the water.  With splashing and squealing, the ones who were fishing were, I’m afraid, wasting their time.

All in all, it was a wonderful day of worship, prayer, food, fun, playing, wading, swimming and fishing.  Amidst it all was laughter and fellowship.  I can only imagine that God was pleased to see His children gathering under His canopy to sing His praises and worship His glory.  When I count my blessings, I count photography with them for, through the eyes of the spirit, I see what magnificent beauty God has made.

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Watching Gracie Grow

Posted on June 10, 2011 | 3 comments

Down’s Syndrome.  I had heard of it, seen people who had it and been around other folks who had children or grandchildren with Down’s but on a personal level, had no real understanding of it.  At least not until the birth of my youngest niece, Gracie.  Gracie came into the world nearly eight weeks early and spent the first two months of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NIC-U).  She had tubes in her nose and mouth, IV lines in her veins and spent much of her time in a special incubator that kept her body temperature regulated.  There was great excitement at each wet or dirty diaper and each dropper of formula that she was able to swallow.  The doctors said over and over to not get our hopes up, that there could be many things wrong and that she would likely be brain damaged, a near-vegetable.  They told of the horrors of holes in her heart and dysfunctional kidneys, blindness and the inability to walk, talk or do many of the  activities that other children do.  Their faces serious and their prognosis dire, they didn’t know what we did.

gracie smiles

That God was already working in that little life and had been even before she was conceived.  They didn’t know that this child was a miracle in the making, a blessing that would far exceed any of our imaginings.  As her little body rested in the incubator, her lungs strengthening with each breath, her muscles growing with each kick, her eyes, unfocused and blurry beginning to gaze directly into ours, we prayed.  Our friends and families prayed, our sister churches prayed and an ever-faithful, merciful and loving God gathered the prayers together and let His blessings flow, falling like the gentle rains of springtime.  When Gracie came home from the hospital, the nurses rejoiced that she was well enough to leave and cried that she would no longer be a part of their everyday lives.  At first, we handled her like a fragile china doll, afraid that the slightest touch would break her.  So tiny was she that our hands could cover her entire body.  But she didn’t stay tiny for long.  She grew and she thrived, she looked and she learned and she brought joy into all of our hearts that we had never known before.  With each milestone, she would smile and clap, then watch and wait for her fans to clap with her.    Watching Gracie grow is one of our most cherished blessings and I, for one, am grateful that this beautiful child graced our lives.  Not surprisingly, she has made her way on to numerous greeting cards, most recently, a Nurses Day card for Oncology Nurses.   Her love, light and laughter is contagious and I hope everyone catches a little bit of it.  I pray that God will continue to bless our sweet Gracie-Bell all of the days of her life.

a little pray-er goes a long way

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Posted in baby, blog, Down's Syndrome, Down's Syndrome, Photography, Encouragement, faith, family, God, Life, love, Photography, Time

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My Mother’s Heart

Posted on May 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

Tonight, as I edited photographs from the last couple of days, I kept going back, time and again, to the same one.  It was like a hundred more I have taken over the years, with the same shapes and textures, but this time, I saw it in a different light.  I developed the photograph in black and white which brought out each line and crease, each flaw and each vein.  It showed that, although in color, it is nearly perfect, in a pure form, without distractions, my mother’s Bleeding Heart is imperfect and scarred.  My mind began to wander back in time and the years melted away as I saw my mother in a way I can’t ever remember seeing her… as the imperfect jewel that she is.  How her heart must have broken when mine did…  How she, like Mary, must have treasured a lot of things up in her heart.  She hid her hurt, cried when no one could see, and did what needed to be done, whatever it might be.  She cooked and cleaned and did all the motherly things that moms do, but her love is what made home a place I wanted to go.  Knowing she was there was like a balm to a burn… a kind of soothing that comes from a cool cloth on my head… there were special birthday dinners, roller skates, Journey records, leg warmers, ballgames, a huge Andy Gibb poster, a phone in my room, food in the fridge, clean clothes in the closet and a million other things that I took for granted… of course there were disagreements, tears, tantrums, hurt feelings, arguments and, my own signature contribution, plenty of stomping and slamming doors… but when all was said and done, I was me and she was my mom, always ready to run to me if I needed her… Looking back, I see what I’ve known all along… that her heart is beautiful… and so is she.

Proverbs 31:25-31

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Religious? No. Follower of Jesus? Yes

Posted on April 22, 2011 | 1 comment

On this day, Good Friday, I woke up, feeling both ashamed and humbled, loved and cherished, thankful and remorseful, hungry and fed, and far more blessed than I deserve.  Why would anyone do what Jesus did, suffer the way He suffered and die a death so horrible that my mind cannot wrap around it.  That question can be answered in one word.  Love.  My love for Christ has nothing to do with religion or gatherings or congregations.  It has no beginnings in tradition or repetition.  It comes because Christ first loved me.  Enough to die a terrifying and horrific death for my sake even though I was a full blown sinner.  There was nothing religious about the death of Jesus.  It was prophesied from way before that a Savior would come.  The lamb to the slaughter. It was a gift from God, who loves at a depth that no man’s heart can understand, even if they know and follow Him.  Religion has taken on a life of it’s own that, in some cases, has little or nothing to do with the teachings of Christ.  There is ritual to complete and rules that must be followed in order to be a part of it.  There are repetitive gestures and misinterpretations of what Jesus has said.   Groups like KKK call themselves religious.  Groups who bomb abortion clinics call themselves religious.  Men, women and children who strap bombs to themselves and blow up others call themselves religious.  Churches who talk about what great things they’ve done and then turn away those who come to them seeking help call themselves religious.  Jesus wasn’t religious.  He was just Jesus.  The Savior, the Messiah, the Holy son of God.  He didn’t conform to the traditions of the world, but set the example for others to follow so that eternal life could be available to everyone.  Everyone.  Not just this church or that sect or this mission or that cause, but everyone.  He gave His life and shed His blood for sinners.  Just going to church or to communion, taking mission trips or giving money does not open the doors of heaven for us to walk through.  There is only one way.  He is the way.  He is the truth.  He is the life.  Without Him, there is no hope of eternal life.  But saying that I know Jesus is not enough.  Proving it is required.  If we walk a good life, give to the poor, help the needy, and show the world how religious we are, we have accomplished nothing if, at the core, there is no love.  Love doesn’t cross the street to avoid a homeless man, a prostitute or a drug addict.  It doesn’t turn it’s back on those in need and it doesn’t just surface on Sunday. When Jesus communed with the people, He did it in the midst of sinners.  He walked among those who had no hope, who had nothing.  And He loved them.  None of us are good.  Not even when we are being good are we good.  Sin is the blackness of evil that follows every step we take, just waiting for the moment when it can trip us and cause us to fall flat on our face.  No matter how devout we claim to be, falling on our face is part of the journey that we are on because unlike Jesus, we are not perfect.  The church can’t save us.  The community can’t save us.  Our family and friends, though supportive and loving, cannot save us, and most certainly, we cannot save ourselves.  No matter where we go or what we try to accomplish, if Jesus is not at the center, then any good that could be done will fall short of what we could do if Jesus was at the center. There is only one way to be saved and that is through the blood of Jesus Christ.  I am a follower of Christ and owe everything I am or ever hope to be to Him… and to Him, not religion, I give all the glory.  For religion, after all, is just a man-made word and I have my hope in that which man has no hand in.  The grave could not hold Him, Satan could not bind Him and He rose, conquering sin and making a way for all people to live in Glory with Him. He lives and He’s coming for us.  What Jesus did, He did out of love and religion had nothing to with it. Praise His Holy Name!

Colossians 2:8 ~ Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

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I’m forgiven… the rest doesn’t really matter

Posted on January 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

 

It’s hard to know, sometimes, when the darkness that feels like it is closing in is, in reality, closing in.  Feelings of anxiety and paranoia mixed with increased self-confidence and a feeling of invincibility co-mingle to give a yo-yo effect that threatens to destroy what may or may not be something meaningful or important.  For someone who has never experienced nor known or been around anyone with bipolar disorder (and those of you who know me, whether you knew it or not, can take yourself off this particular list), it can be befuddling at best and, at worst, frightening.  A person with bipolar disorder can function just as well as anyone else as long as the neurons, protons, croutons and other “ons” in their brain are going about their business as usual… but it only takes one thing, usually something the person couldn’t name as a trigger if a gun was held to their head (no pun intended).  But there won’t be any of the people in the life a bipolarist who won’t see that something was off.  Usually they will talk around the dinner table to their family or perhaps discuss the situation with friends… the one person they do not talk with is the person they perceive is having a problem.  I have to ask this… if someone were witnessing a brutal beating of another human being, would they call the police or try to stop it in some way, or call their friends or gather with their family and discuss that something is wrong.  I guess I sound like i’m ranting, and i am.  I’m pretty upset at this point that all the world around me noticed that “something was up” and that I wasn’t acting myself, but chose to yuk it up with each other and discuss how different and how “not like myself” i’ve been acting.  No doubt, this entry will step on some toes and most likely hurt some feelings.  Sorry ’bout that.  After a problem has been identified, people say  “i knew something was off”.  So what were they waiting for…?  a ribbon.  These folks say repeatedly that they are my friends and are always there for me, no matter what… it is, i guess, sometimes exciting on some primitive level, to be included by proxy, in a critical situation… but what about the everyday?  The little things that don’t add up but happen with increasing frequency like snapping at people, hatefulness, dressing in clothes that look slept in, unusual eating habits, distractability, just to name a few… these need to be addressed quickly as this is especially important for the sufferer/offender, who rarely, if ever, knows this stuff they think they are “dealing with” is noticeable to the world that lives outside their brain.  When there is a known history, it becomes even more important to bring the reality of a possible crisis to light.  People suffering from functional bipolarism (my own made up term) are just like anyone else.  For the most part, their behavior is normal on every level, and during those exceptions when their behavior deviates from the norm, it is the people who are closest to them… who know them best who should be the first to say hmmm…  this ain’t right…  Satan has made me his current pasttime and, for his own jollies, is enjoying seeing me squirm.  But be that as it may, he cannot break me, for the king of my heart and soul is my savior and the song that God sings over me is beautiful.  If the devil thinks this is going unnoticed, he’s a bigger idiot than i gave him credit for.  God sees what that little pissant is up to and GOD will sustain me.  I didn’t recognize the signs.  Well, actually, that is a falsehood.  I did recognize the signs of feeling depressed, but the feelings came around the holidays and during an exceptionally bleak winter.  I attributed it to the lack of sunshine, the stress of the holidays and wild work days… to the devastation of losing my Jim, tay leaving for college, new challenges in my life.  All reasonable, analytical and fair assumptions and things people with normal brains experience just as I do.  What I didn’t see, and what “normal” brains rarely experience on any level that is noticeable, was the change in my behavior.  But many people did, yet they chose to keep that little bit of information to themselves.  Had Jim been alive, he would not only have noticed, but would have made comments on it… comments, i might add, that would have driven me to the point of distraction and i would have made an appointment with my doctor just to get him off my back.  I freely admit that I am outspoken… a trait that took me many years to attain, and one that I have no intention of giving up… but i’m not mean about it.  I often do things at the last moment, but that is no different than any other time in my life… I am an optimist… sometimes to the point where friends and family want to shove a sock in my mouth… but i don’t, on a “normal” day think i can fly… but when my behavior changes enough to be noticed by my dad, a man who would sit with the walls falling in on his head and not know it, then there is obviously a problem and it must be dealt with immediately.  I don’t deny that I am currently in a crisis brought on by my disorder nor do i deny that i have no idea what caused it.  Looking back over the past year, it is likely that jim’s death was the catalyst, but, as any bonified bipolarist will tell you, we are masters of concealment, even when we don’t know we are concealing… i don’t deny that adjustments needed to be made… i don’t deny that, now that someone has made comments on the rapidly changing moods and isolation ( my mom, who knows me better than anyone, said something first and made me evaluate my current state – i called the doctor the very next day), i was able, then,  to see the warning signs and recognize the change in my behavopr… the warning signs were screaming at the top of their lungs… they were screaming “oh my stars, girl, you are losing it”.  I had a friend, more like a sister, really, tell me today that they felt like i hated them.  If that isn’t a flag, i don’t know what is. She told me she wanted to congratulate me on my accomplishments but felt that i had been congratulating myself quite enough.  A braggart?  I don’t now, nor have i ever considered myself to be a braggart… the things i accomplish have nothing to do with me but with my God who empowers and blesses me…. that should have raised another flag. Bipolar disorder really is a neighborhood disease because let me tell you this… during a manic icandoanythingandthereisnothingtostandinmyway phase, i am in the most danger to myself… not because i think of suicide, but because there is no speed too fast,no crag to rocky, no risk to high…. because, well, because i can do anything and it will have no effect on me.  I look around at what i know, while i am drunk and sick from the new meds, and realize that i’m not sure i have friends, but instead, people who think they know me.  People who know me would see things that are out of kilter for me, then talk about it to their friends and family… I know who i can trust… I know who i could, at one time, trust, and I know who I can’t trust… sound paranoid…?  it may be.  But i’m disappointed in my friends and frankly i don’t mind telling them so. The doctor seems to think that meds that would kill a team of clydesdales are the answer, and for now, just to ensure that my brain is able to defend itself from the tentacles of satan, i will take them… but i know in my heart of hearts that what i really need is a boatride on a hot summer day…   To hear a song of praise to my  Father which speaks directly to my heart, click on the title link.  It will take you to a youtube video.  I don’t love any of you any less… know that for sure, but trust is not something i give out lightly and right now, i could count the people i trust on three fingers.  Don’t let your feelings get hurt when I don’t blubber my undying gratitude to you just because you “knew something was going on”.  Life is life… regardless of who’s living it.

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My musings of DC

Posted on December 13, 2010 | Leave a comment
It’s hard to know where to start when there is what seems an entire lifetime of events… that’s, i know, impossible as the time was only 2 1/2 short days… so i’ll just start somewhere and see where the thoughts and memories take me.. what struck me most profoundly in this incredible metropolis known to the world as DC, is that I felt like I had been there before… I have dreamed of seeing this place since I was a little kid… about 7, I believe… so many times, in my thoughts and hopes, I have walked the streets of Washington.  Some of what I saw was exactly as I imagined and others were more than I expected.  The city itself, at least the part where the tourists go, is clean and depicts itself as a pinnacle of history, tradition, pomp, culture and breeding… a place that draws me to want to be a part of it, to submerse myself in the history and become part of something that feels incredibly special and, at the same time, strangely familiar.  The stark white of the buildings against, on the first day out, blue skies, and then overcast with occasional sunbursts, were impressive.  Massive things they were, standing at attention, endlessly awaiting what could be the most important thing ever to happen.  And smart in their black uniforms were the armed guards standing alert and ready at every federal building.  They patrolled the streets on bikes and could be seen everywhere.  They were unsmiling and quite intimidating… but helpful, mostly, when asked for information.  President Lincoln, sitting stoically in his shrine, was most impressive… I wasn’t really prepared for the massiveness of the statue.  I knew, of course, that it would be large, but this was monumental.  The reflecting pool was frozen, save a small area about five feet wide… the Washington Monument cast a shadow across the frozen pool, a reflection to come another day…The columns of the great buildings were huge and made me think of Coliseums. The people who lived there, and they were distinguished from the rest of us boobs touring around.. were, in my experience, very polite, though distracted with the daily grind and bustle.  What I found to be a cool thing to do, they found riding the Metro a chore and high on the list of “dumb things I gotta do”.  They seemed oblivious, for the most part, they were living practically next door to the President.  It was exciting to think that, at any moment, the President of the United States could pass right in front of me.  I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling of pride and eagerness when President Obama passed by in his motorcade right in front of our eyes.  It was a moment that felt fake, as though I would wake up in the real world… and what a great feeling to realize that, at this particular moment, I and my Pentax were in the real world and this was really happening… DC was decorated for Christmas with wreaths and red ribbons on many of the buildings, a stark contrast to the white… Lights adorned the trees around buildings and Christmas trees were in abundance all over the city.  The huge Christmas tree in the center of the Ellipse on the White House property was impressive, and once lighted, was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.  If the weather had held, we would have stayed one more day, taking a trip to Arlington Cemetery and getting a last look at the White House.  But, Mother Nature had other plans and instead of taking chances, we decided to leave early to beat the foul weather.  On the last morning, while at McDonald’s for breakfast, Taylor and I met a very nice black woman who sat and ate at the table with us.  She had lived hard years, at least that’s the story her face and hands showed.  Her name was Michelle and she was a wealth of information.  She has lived in DC her whole life and when I commented on how beautiful the city was, she laughed out loud and said “you han’t been dinetine has ye?”…  She spoke of her five grandchildren, her eyes lighting up as she told of each one and what they were doing.  She was excited that she was going to see them for Christmas.  We talked about the snow and she told of a big snow last year.  I don’t know if she was homeless… I didn’t ask her.  What I do know is that she was a fascinating, interesting woman with information about a place that I wanted to know about.  I wish there had been more time… I would have loved to have seen “her DC”.  I was reminded again, as she smiled over her eggs and hotcakes, that we are all children of God and He rains on all of us, wherever we are, just as He lets the gentle wind blow and the sun shine… just like He sends the north wind to tear at our hair and clothes and snow so thick that sight is impossible… He is too great to describe in a blog or a photograph… to omnipotent to ever begin to understand… but I know He loves me… and He loves Michelle… and all the others everywhere… He sees the happiness, discouragement, sorrow, joy… in Southwest Virginia and in Washington DC and on every inch of the world, both here and abouts…  I believe this with everything I am, was or ever hope to be… and I know He has blessed me beyond measure…  If this was it, I could not complain… for it has already been more than I had ever  hoped to dream for… Praising Him for blessing me in the midst of my unworthiness…

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Washington DC… A dream realized

Posted on December 9, 2010 | 1 comment
It’s nearly 11:00, and while I know I should be in bed, I find that closing my eyes, knowing that I am just a 5 minute ride from the heartbeat of this wonderful country we live in is keeping me awake.  I wasn’t sure what I would see or feel or think, never having been in or around DC before… Lisa and I both came to the conclusion at the same time, tho, that were mom here, she would be sick.  The metro sways side to side, speeds up and slows down, and often, we were riding backward… Once in the city itself, I was struck first by the cleanliness of everything.  The streets, buildings, lawns, vehicles… even the squirrels… it is all just busting at the seams in anticipation of something wonderful… or maybe that is me bursting at the seams in anticipation…  the streets and buildings are decorated with lights and wreaths and the effect, with the big ol’ buildings and the stoic trees, is a mesmerizingly fascinating one.  On our walk out and about today, as we scouted out the ticket pick-up line and seating for the tree-lighting, we saw the White House, the Capitol building (from a distance) and the Washington Monument.  There are flags everywhere, on every building and post and on many of the cars.  Statues and sculptures are everywhere… some of the people, whose likenesses are preserved in stone, I have heard of and others, I haven’t.  Around every corner is an aura of oldness… of traditions that haven’t been broken in decades and a pride carried on the faces and shoulders of the locals that says it ain’t planning on breaking them any time soon.  The trees, as I imagined they would be, are stunning.  An incredible contrast between the white of the buildings, the green (how they do that in december i don’t know) of the lawns, the blue of the sky and the thousands of Christmas lights and decorations, the trees stand sentry-like, guarding in their own way those that belong to them.  The White House is beautiful, but having seen photographs of it, that does not come as a surprise… but seeing it with my own eyes made me want to cry… I could scarcely believe that another one of my dreams had come true.  The level grounds surrounding it and the huge trees flanking it on every side made it even more stunning.  And if seeing the White House wasn’t enough, the roads were barricaded and the President’s motorcade came through.  While the tinted, bullet-proof glass offered little give where photos were concerned, President Obama is in the limo, behind the driver.  He is leaned forward slightly and, sorry, Mr. President, but those ears would give you away anywhere.  I am still excited about it… i don’t think it would have been any better if he had stopped, got out, and said, “why, Gina… don’t stand out in the cold, come on and I’ll give you a ride to five guys…”  Just seeing what I saw and knowing what I know to be true was enough.  And I waved at him… I waved at the President of the United States while standing in front of the White House wearing a goofy looking hat and feeling like the cat with the keys to the milkhouse.  A once in a lifetime opportunity… but then this trip is filled with them.  I am thankful that my loving God has blessed me yet again with one of my heart’s desires and that He showed me things this day I most likely would have missed if not for His blessing…  I am not worthy, and yet here I am… God is faithful…

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you just might be a fruitcake…

Posted on November 14, 2010 | 2 comments
Ok… now I am beginning to become somewhat concerned… I wasn’t concerned when I listened to Jimmy Buffet over and over day and night for the past two weeks, at home, in the car and at work… I wasn’t really aware that I shouted out lyrics to his songs out of the blue at the oddest of times and already know nearly every word to my favorites (although, if I had been aware, I would have begun to realize that something was up)  Not really worried when I realized that I actually paid money for skull and crossbones tablecloths on a post-halloween sale to use in a “pirate motif” at my birthday dinner… didn’t flinch when I bought the “ghost pirate” at the same post-halloween sale… never occurred to me that there was a time in my life when I had not been a Parrothead and really was bummed that I was an over 40 victim of fate…  never mind my new love of boat drinks…  i’ve put myself in time-out twice for saying hell and damn… two words I never used to say… at least not out loud… It doesn’t bother me that I think, seriously, about flying down south for a few days this winter… not just south, but SOUTH… Now although everything so far has pointed towards obsessive behavior and maybe even a little, um, for lack of a better word, weird, even for me… it feels natural, like a second skin so… I didn’t realize how absorbed I had become by the “island life” and that I actually considered myself an islander… at least not until an encounter at Kroger the other night that made me realize that I might need to run to the nearest Margaritaville and have a cheeseburger in paradise until the whole fruitcake moment has passed… I was standing in front of the febreeze and glade scents… I love those new febreeze pop-up things, whatever they are, and was smelling them… they have a scatch and sniff doohickey on the front… that said, there was this man coming in my direction and he says to me “which one smells the best”… I held the one in my hand up, hawaiian some such or another, and said “this one”… so he goes and picks up one and says to me, “so what does hawaiian stuff smell like”… and I said.. and this is what made me realize that I have earned my Parrothead badge… I said “it smells like one particular harbor”…  now is that messed up or what… i need help and i need it in a hurry…  for what it’s worth, tho, he put the febreeze in his cart…
I LIKE MINE WITH LETTUCE AND TOMATOES, HEINZ 57 AND FRANCH FRIED POTATOES….

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breathe in, breathe out, move on

Posted on November 5, 2010 | 2 comments

Sometimes, at the oddest times, the oddest things happen… and sometimes, this collision of oddness creates a clarity that puts everything in perspective…  Now, just to be honest, I have never considered myself a fan of Jimmy Buffett and certainly not a Parrothead, a Pirate or a rum-drinking beach bum…  But recently, an event happened that jump-started a cataclysmic chain of events…  It was Halloween…. or close to it, anyway, when  Missy gave me a cd… her favorite jimmy buffett songs… not necessarily, as missy said, his most popular, but the ones she liked best.  I took it to the house and when I went to work on Monday, I popped it into the cd player in my car… OMStars!!!  I was instantly, irrevocably and irretrievably mesmerized… Everything I knew about Jimmy Buffett was wrapped up in Margaritaville… I had labeled him immediately as “not my thing”… and years passed.  Then, a few days ago, while listening to the cd in the car, I heard the lyrics that changed everything… “according to my watch, the time is now… the past is dead and gone… don’t try to shake it, just nod your head… breathe in, breathe out and move on”.  Now I’ve had little epiphanies before, little ones that make me say “oooh”… but this was different…  I was, of all places in the shower… Those lyrics came to mind and I looked over the past year, in which I have had to learn to live without Jim… an entire year of “wish jim could see…, as jim used to say…., on this day, jim always…”  An entire year learning to live day by day without the man I thought I couldn’t live without, but was given no choice but to do what I had deemed undoable…. then the words popped into my head “according to my watch the time is now”… and with them, the answer to the question that I didn’t remember asking… that first year, i did learn to live without jim… it wasn’t easy… as a matter of fact, it was the second most difficult thing i have ever faced… but I learned…  and now, “the past is dead and gone”… and there is no changing that… period.  “Don’t try to shake it, just nod your head”… how could you shake it even if you wanted to… life, death, happiness, sorrow, joy, pain… it’s all tied together in life… it doesn’t matter who you are, you know it… and this is where the fork in the road appears…  two choices…take the low road… wallow in what was, but will never be again… stagnate in a pool of self pity and righteous grief… or the high road where you  “breathe in, breathe out and move on”… I choose the high rode.  I spent the last year learning to live without him… Now I will live without him, for to do otherwise is to say that the life God gave me to live isn’t worth living if I have to do it alone… I will take with me the little pieces of jim that i loved so much… but at the end of the day, when the quiet settles and the dark gathers, there is no one here but me… So, with memories that I wouldn’t trade for another day of life, strength born of dragging a burden that was nearly too heavy to bear, courage born of renewed faith and a knowledge that God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do…I’m going to live and  not take a single moment of this precious life for granted…  and if God is willing to send me… I am willing to go… I want to meet His people and look at them through the eyes of the spirit… I want to look at creation… to see it all… I am praying that God will continue to take me down the path of photography until I get where He wants me to be… That I will know what to do when I get there and that every aspect of my life will glorify Jesus… and in the meantime, I will serve Him, I will worship Him and  I’ll breathe in, breathe out and move on…

Yes, I am a pirate… 200 years too late…

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Amazing Grace… how sweet the sound

Posted on September 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is a speech that I wrote after being asked to speak at a church in Cleveland, TN.  It was written shortly after Jim died, within a month or so, and was integral in my healing from this shock… God is faithful… and He is worthy.  I wanted to share this, as there may be another new widow out there who needs to know that God will not forsake them… no matter what

 
Hello.  Thank you for having me with you today.  My name is Gina Minton Kearns, and I am, among other things, a Christian, a photographer, writer and greeting card designer.  I live in a very small town in Southwest Virginia, on my parent’s farm.  The fields stretch out in front of the house, all the way to the road, nearly a half a mile.  The mountains loom behind it and rolling hills bypass it on either side.  It is a peaceful place.  I love it there.  I’ve loved it there since the first time I ever sat foot on it, before my Dad decided to buy it and move there.  He later, after my Jim and me were married, invited us to move by him on his land.  We went and that’s where we spent the last few years.  Jim and I would have celebrated our tenth anniversary this year.    He was called home two weeks and two days before our anniversary.  It was an awesome shock and completely unexpected.  I really can‘t think of a time in my life when the shock has literally brought me to my knees.  Coming home, expecting to find him doing something around the house, and find him dead over his coffee instead.  I remember thinking, all in a matter of seconds, “well, he’s fallen asleep at his table” and before that thought was complete “he wouldn’t do that”.  And that was true.  He wasn’t asleep.  He was dead.  Had been dead for the several hours I had been trying to reach him.    I can’t say that I was really worried about him when I couldn‘t reach him.  I assumed that he had gone somewhere and forgotten his phone, or as a worse case scenario, he had fallen or become disabled somehow while tending his peppers.  It never occurred to me that he could be dead.  It never once, not even when I was thinking of all the things that could have happened to him, not once, crossed my mind.

I went through, then, what you’d expect:  weeping, wailing, oh-noing, questioning, screaming, crying.  All of it.  Then the funeral home came and took him away.  He was buried in the little cemetery of our beloved church, in a beautiful place that watches the sunset through one of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen.  It’s like it was sewn there, by the birds or the wind, for Jim.  God knows all things.  

I love trees.  I love the sound they make in the summer, when they are full of leaves and the wind blows them.  I love the sound of them in the Autumn, when the leaves are drying and rustling in the wind – then blowing into the air to  make a colorful rainfall of leaves and falling to a carpet that smells earthy and wonderful… and the lonesome whistling as it weaves through the bare branches of wintertime.  Our lives are very similar to that of a tree through one full cycle of seasons.  We start out new and bursting with life.  Growing strong in the sunlight and the rain and all the other blessings of God… and then a season passes and we are mature, having children, bearing fruit for the next generations.  Thriving on health and fullness of life, dancing wildly in the winds and the rains after toiling in the heat of the day… and then another season passes and the children are grown, the seed mature, and gone to their own lives.  Our strength begins to falter and the winds are much harder to withstand.  By the time another season passes, we will be old and waiting for the final call of God when we can give up our suffering and be with him forever.  Bare and naked before the Lord, yet beautiful in a battle-scarred body and our faith… knowing that after another season, there will be rebirth into the place where there will be no death.  God is faithful.

It was hard losing Jim.  He was a precious gift to me from God… a gift that helped to nurture my spirit and soul as we worshipped the Jesus we loved together.  My heart was heavy, too heavy for me to bear alone, so God sent a blessing to me far beyond my wildest imaginings.   I’d like to share my story with you for it is beautiful to me how God works.  He has no care for time, for He is time… all time.  Anyway, I had cleaned out Jim’s closet as I wanted someone to get some use out of his clothes.  They are too good to waste, taking space, that if allowed, would become shrine-like and sacred.  Nothing short of what is God’s should be considered sacred.  Some of them hadn’t been worn in a long time and they smelled stale, so I washed them.  It was on the way to the clothesline with the washed clothes that God spoke to me.  We often think that we can only hear from God if we are in church or during prayer.  But God is with us always, including when we are not in church and not praying.  He is with us when we are hurting and sorrowful.  When we are guilt-ridden and burdened by the trials of this life.   So on the back porch with a basket full of wet clothes, God reached out to me.  There a blooming flower caught my eye.  A beautiful, perfectly blooming, orange calendula.  All the other flowers in the surrounding pots were dead.  The frost had killed them and they had turned brown and stood in the pots like dead trees that had never fallen.  It was then that I noticed that although the bloom had caught my eye, I could only see a tiny corner of the orange bloom, and I realized at that moment, that was how I felt.  Hidden and lost behind a forest of pain and sorrow… grief and guilt… tears and tears and tears and tears… slumping from the heaviness of the burden I had been given to bear.  I moved forward a bit and could see a bit more of the bloom.  The dead zinnia stalks with their dead seedpods were still the most prominent thing in my sight, yet there was more of the bloom than there was before.  And it was here that my journey started.
 God spoke to me through sights and feelings.  I used my camera and could feel the urging of Holy Spirit as I snapped off the photographs that were coinciding with the moments of my life I was being shown.  All the while, with each new vantage point, the days of my future were running through my head and my heart.  Not the actual day, but the essence of it with the weight of the burden I was dragging.  It was in real time.  I knew what I would feel.  I felt what I would feel.  I felt weightless and free as I lived in the moments that God was showing me. There are many trials that we face in life that drag us to our bellies, with our face in the dirt.  Obstacles that seem unsurpassable and burdens that feel unbearable.  And they are unsurpassable and unbearable if we try to get through them ourselves.  But when we turn to God to lift us up and hold us until we are able to stand, the path becomes clear and the burden lighter.  God showed this to me on that day, on the back porch, with the laundry basket at my feet.   

It never occurred to me that I would have to bear two deaths when Jim passed away.  The physical death paled in comparison to the second death.  Though both were painful, it was second, enduring death that left me shattered, broken and lost as I struggled to grasp the magnitude of enduring the reality of losing that part of him that merged with my spirit and made me feel part of the whole.  It is the knowledge that your spirit, though not broken, is severely bent and seemingly irrevocably sorrowed.  It is now that there is only the slightest glimmer of who you are behind all the pain, sorrow and weeping agony that plagues us through silent, lonely nights and empty mornings…  But after a season, although we will still be hidden behind the shadow of their missing spirit, there will be more of us.  Day by day, week by week, a battle fought hard and bitter, though at times so beautiful, the Father will continue to hold us up until our strength returns.  
 
After another season, those things which made us unique will begin to show.  The loss will still be there at the center of our heart but our spirit will slowly be spreading its wings… then at some point, there will be more of our spirit shining through and less of the pain and sorrow that ravaged it.  Although the pain and sorrow will still be there, we will be able to face it, each time, a little better than the last – for as long as we travel in this world, the sorrows and anguish will come unexpectedly… but by then, we will have become stronger than we’ve ever been.  God will have refined our faith in Him and each refining gives us strength and faith beyond what we had before.  God doesn’t want our losses and sorrows to break us.  Though we may cry, weep, pray, scream, question, beg, bargain and crash, in the end you need to choose to live your life in peace, following the roads and dreams that have culminated over a lifetime to make you special… that part you lost that completed the whole, just like the parts of others you’ve lost over the years never left – it is simply smothered, for now, underneath the grief and sorrow, but it will re-emerge in you, and through Grace, you will begin to feel whole again.  For after all, to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.  Ecclesiastes 3:1

When we are faced with trials, sorrows, tribulations, temptations and the myriad of other things we will come across as we walk through this life, God doesn’t want us to face them alone.  We are like a candle, whose flame has not been lit.  Once lit, we can either flare out or flare up.  If we flare out, we have noting… but if we flare up, we have hope.  If the trials of life put out our light, we are no good to anyone, especially to God, since with guilt, hurt or betrayal, what more, except those curses, do we have if we have no light.  Instead, we should flare up to God.  Ask him for understanding if it is his will, but don’t give up hope.  For salvation is our hope.  And that is more important than everything else combined.   So as we sorrow or grieve for that which haunts us, we should rejoice as well, for we are children of God and have been saved by the blood of his perfect lamb.  For though this world is just a little while, Salvation is eternal, never ending.  I can’t even imagine never-ending.  I’ve tried.  But in my never-ending, there’s always an ending.  I cannot fathom something without end.  How vast – more than vast- the ocean and earth are vast, but they have ends.  Salvation without end is greater than my mind can bring clear.  Do you really and truly believe all that God has said about seasons, forgiveness, love, everlasting, salvation and eternity?  If so, then flare up for Him so that others can see His light through you.  As God said in Isaiah 1:18-20:  “Come now, let us reason together” says the Lord.  Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.

Call on the Father who loves you more than anything…  Enough to watch His beautiful boy die a horrific death so that you could live with Him in glory.  He only asks for your obedience and acceptance of His son.  As we enter the season of celebration of the Holy Virgin Birth, call out to God to be with you.  He will never, ever leave you.  And He won’t, as we have done to Him so many times, let us down.  
 

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